The Cognitive Psychology of Belief in the Supernatural

Abstract: Although many psychologists have studied evolution's imprint
on the human mind, scant attention has been given to one particularly
remarkable human trait—our widespread belief in the supernatural. Could
a belief in a deity or an afterlife be evolutionarily advantageous? Or
are these beliefs a by-product of our ability to reason about the minds
of others? The author and his colleagues have studied children to
determine at what age they will believe that a spirit is trying to send
them a message, or assert that a deceased agent (i.e., in the
"afterlife") has attributes such as anger or thirst. The author argues
that, despite the social quagmire surrounding all things religious, the
rigorous study of supernatural beliefs by psychological science can be
important for a complete understanding of human cognitive development.

Jesse M. Bering, The Cognitive Psychology of Belief in the Supernatural:
Belief in a deity or an afterlife could be an evolutionarily
advantageous by-product of people's ability to reason about the minds of
others, /American Scientist /*Volume:* 94 *Number:* 2 *Page:* 142

I ran across this interesting article which continues science quest to
understand religious faith/spirituality and why it seems so ubiquitous.
The article mentioned the 'Santa Claus' effect as an example of invoking
an 'all knowing' person who gets to judge your behavior during
Christmas. This ties in with my observations that it is the fear of
punishment by an all knowing entity may have selective advantages. This
also would tie in nicely with the discussion on morality and 'absolute
values'. The questions are "is the human mind genetically
predispositioned toward supernatural belief", "are religious beliefs a
result of cultural indoctronation?" or are "religious beliefs the
results of being exposed to them from birth?"

Evolutionary psychology argues that particular emotions and 'thoughts'
are evolutionary and have a selective nature. For instance our
preference for sweet and fatty foods, our fear of heights or snakes, or
our reaction to babies "coochi-coochi-coo" seem to be quite widely
spread. The article raises some interesting questions such as 'if
religious belief has evolved, is it directly from a selective advantage
or a spandrel of evolution?". Or perhaps is it an exaptation, a spandral
which was eventually selected for. The author did some interesting
studies which showed the disconnect between closely related physical and
psychological processes. On the one hand children would argue that a
dead mouse did not need to eat or drink, yet they also considered that
the dead mouse would retain the capacity for hunger and thirst. From
additional experiments, the author found that and argues, that because
nobody really knows what it means to be dead, the brain extrapolates
using inferences designed to reason about every day living people. In
other words, people are most likely to still attach mental states to
dead people but less likely to attach physical needs.It's a very thought
provoking article so let me posit the following question:

Were humans 'created' when they evolved the capacity to rationalize the
existence of supernatural beings?

The homepage of the author Jesse Bering
http://www.uark.edu/depts/psyc/fbering.html

Other relevant pages
http://www.meta-religion.com/Neurology/Spirituality/biological_basis.htm
Experimental Studies Of Supernatural And Religious Concepts
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~pboyer/RelCogWebSite/index.html

And the following paper
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~pboyer/RelCogWebSite/LivingstonSearchMeaning.pdf

Homepages
http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/ipyysiai/Project%20second_page_1.htm
Mind and Society in the Transmission of Religion A Research Project
funded by the Academy of Finland by Ilkka Pyysiäinen, Leader of the project

_Representative Publications:_

Bering, J. M. (in press). The folk psychology of souls. /Behavioral and
Brain Sciences/.
http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Bering-11302004/Referees/Bering-11302004_preprint.doc

Bering, J. M., McLeod, K. A., & Shackelford, T. K. (in press). Reasoning
about dead agents reveals possible adaptive trends. /Human Nature/.

Bering, J. M. (2005). The evolutionary history of an illusion: Religious
causal beliefs in children and adults. In B. Ellis & D. Bjorklund
(Eds.), /Origins of the social mind: Evolutionary psychology and child
development/ (pp. 411-437). New York: Guilford Press.

Bering, J. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (2004). The causal role of
consciousness: A conceptual addendum to human evolutionary psychology.
/Review of General Psychology, 8/, 227- 248.

Bering, J. M., & Bjorklund, D.F. (2004). The natural emergence of
reasoning about the afterlife as a developmental regularity.
/Developmental Psychology, 40/, 217-233.

Bering, J. M. (2003). Towards a cognitive theory of existential meaning.
/New Ideas in Psychology, 21/, 101-120.
Received on Sat Mar 18 16:59:22 2006